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Ongoing programs
In this context, SIEMBRA maintains an ongoing local development program to empower Otomí women through equal access to economic opportunities and business development. SIEMBRA promotes four lines of work.1) Research Program
To hone this program, SIEMBRA researched and developed the contents of an innovative set of gender sensitive business and leadership tools. These tools have been successfully field-tested with a participatory methodology.
The tools are used as training materials. These educational materials (manuals, booklets and guides) have been published by SIEMBRA to train more trainers from the Otomí community as well as to train the entrepreneurs.
- The Business Plan
- A Marketing Guide
- Micro enterprise Leadership: Boards better practices for decision making
- Micro finance: gender awareness and better practices
- Operation Manual for Rural Promoters
- Transforming Social Leadership: better practices for women and men
- Health and Reproductive rights
2) Training Program
SIEMBRA's training program teaches business skills and money management through a gender loans, promoting Mexican women entrepreneurs' self-sufficiency, self-esteem, self-reliance, and self-worth.
Its training objectives include the following: To organize women in groups (called GEMS, or Group of Entrepreneurs in Micro Credit and Savings); to work on solutions to economic, social, educational and political problems faced by Otomí women; to help these women become aware of their context in society; to develop new abilities, skill upgrades, and financial and managerial training; to increase their earning capacity and self-sufficiency; to augment leadership abilities; to increase their business know-how (specifically about production costs, delivery and transport costs, administrative costs, record keeping, production registration, wage payment, bank account management, income control, stock control, payments, etc.); and to make the Otomí people run sustainable businesses.
SIEMBRA has learned that it cannot only train women in business and leadership skills without also giving entrepreneurs the tools they need to make a living and take care of themselves and their loved ones. For this reason, this project does not merely focus on empowering women by upgrading their business and leadership skills to take decisions and full power in the enterprise and in the GEMS. But also in having the ability to take care of themselves and of their family, save money, receive small investment loans, and learn how to control all types of resources, especially to control their own money and profit efficiently. That way they will boost their confidence and self-esteem, while learning better ways to take charge of their future and realize self-fulfillment. Our experience in the Otomí community has also shown us that this project encourages women to become more outspoken and to make themselves leaders in the community.
3) Poverty Alleviation Program
As we stated before, SIEMBRA organizes the women in groups called GEMS, inviting entrepreneurs to save money, have access to loans through communal banks, be self-reliant in terms of financial self-sufficiency.
While many similar micro credit programs have been successful in several undeveloped countries, two shortcomings were apparent to SIEMBRA. There was a pressing need to empower women to help them become autonomous and economically self-sufficient. While many micro credit programs target women, some providers think that they inherently empower them when they receive loans. Second, a recent United Nations study has shown that a "contribution to empowerment cannot be assumed to be an automatic consequence of access to micro finance services per se, but needs to be strategically planned as an integral part of the program design to be empowered".1
Thus, SIEMBRA's poverty alleviation program operates parallel to its training program, giving educational training sessions to the groups of women that have formed communal banks through GEMS. Due to its communal format, the beneficiaries actively participate in the management of the program. The beneficiaries:
- Form the communal bank (GEMS) and invite participants themselves, deciding who will be part of it
- They elect board members of their GEM, including a president, treasurer, and secretary
- Control and manage all monetary aspects of the program by managing their own savings and loans funds
- Decide when they will meet as a group or for training sessions
- Are guided by SIEMBRA's staff to develop their own sets of internal guidelines.
- Decide how to invest and spend their money, as well as what to do with the accrued interest from their savings.
- Choose which productive activity to invest their loans.
SIEMBRA's goal is not only to organize the people in groups of entrepreneurs in GEMS, but also seeks to share information with women and men participants about necessary financial management and business skills to operate their enterprise more effectively.
4) Self-Employment and Business Advice Program
SIEMBRA provides micro enterprise creation and technical advice to promote entrepreneurship and self-management in terms of decision making in assuming and exercising power. Moreover, it supports collective and personal initiatives to create micro enterprises to generate income and become leaders of development in the Otomí communities.
SIEMBRA supports business owners with advice for business planning, informs board members in assuming and exercising power for decision making. Promotes better business practices for micro enterprise management. Thus, SIEMBRA helps augment the women's successful self-employment strategies and viable long-term micro enterprises.
1 Mayoux, Linda. Micro-Finance for Women's Empowerment, United Nations/UNIFEM, London, United Kingdom, 2001, pg. 11.